A Religious Education teacher has swapped the dusty tomes of her classroom for a shot at supermodel stardom.

Nneka Ikedife, 23, sashays onto the stage to represent Brighton in the glitzy Miss Great Britain contest tonight.

There she hopes to dazzle a panel of judges which includes girl band Atomic Kitten, DJ Dane Bowers and Britain's youngest millionaire Reuben Singh - as well as millions of viewers when the contest is shown on TV.

Nneka, who lives in Tilbury Way, Brighton, is one of 30 finalists picked from thousands of hopefuls who sent pictures to the model agency's panel for a place on the catwalk at the exclusive CC Club in Piccadilly Circus.

The hopefuls will have to stun judges in the swimwear and evening dress sections before impressing them with their intellect and interests in a short interview.

But Nneka's glamorous ambitions are a million miles away from her first job teaching at a school in London's notorious Tower Hamlets estate.

She said: "My degree was in sociology and afterwards I went on to do a teacher training course.

"I didn't realise at the time but I soon found it was one of the roughest schools in the country.

"I had to drop out a couple of months before finishing my PGCE because I just couldn't handle it.

"It wasn't the kids, although the boys were always asking me on dates and trying to chat me up, it was the low morale.

"It felt more like being a prison warden than a teacher. Playground duty was just crowd control."

She left and now works as a runner for TV production company RDF as well as waitressing in the evenings.

She said: "It has always been a dream of mine to be a supermodel but I'm not sure I could handle the dieting. They're all about 12 years old and three stone.

"I'm not the sort of girl who spends hours putting on make-up and choosing dresses, I prefer the natural look.

"I've chosen a skimpy blue bikini with sequins on for the swimwear section. I'm a bit nervous because the only modelling I've done before was for a school fashion show. I've never done anything like this, but I'm really excited."

The winner of tonight's contest will go on to represent Britain in the Miss Tourism World 2002 Final which is in Medallin, Colombia, at the end of August and has a £30,000 top prize.